


to them he is a mirror

by misandrywitch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking, a little talk of prescription med abuse nothing explicit though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 01:21:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4857836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misandrywitch/pseuds/misandrywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Jack knows is that after this summer, everything is going to be different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to them he is a mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [to you he is a room](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859111) by [punkpadfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkpadfoot/pseuds/punkpadfoot). 



> title comes from 'you are jeff' by richard siken
> 
> this is HALF of the hell fic: cait punkpadfoot has written parse's pov: to you he is a room
> 
> huge thanks to idrilka for beta-ing this :)

The party’s not exactly the best thing Jack’s ever attended, but up until a minute ago it had been just fine, because up until a minute ago Kent had been standing at Jack’s elbow, working his way through some concoction of Malibu and pineapple with his hat on backwards, laughing his ass off at the bad music playing in the background. But Jack had turned away because he’d managed to find a free corner on a couch in the middle of the crowded living room and had gestured over his shoulder for Kent to follow him. When he turns back around Kent, his nasty drink, his hat and his laugh are all absent.

Jack’s okay at parties, and okay at hiding it when he’s not, and he’s alright right now because he’s got two beers and something with a lot of vodka and OJ in his system. But the room’s way too packed for him to even guess what direction Kent headed off in, and when he stands up from his spot on the couch, a circle of people to his left all look over at him.

Great. Jack sits down again and nods at them.

It’s not a bad party, as house parties go, but it’s crowded and the beer pong table has a line, and Jack hasn’t seen anyone else he knows, and they’d left quickly enough that Jack hadn’t had a second to stick his meds in his pocket. That’s maybe not what he needs right now, but it would stop him worrying for a minute. The group of people are all looking at him sitting all by himself in one corner of the couch, even as they continue their conversation which seems to be about the math professor they all hate who they’ve left behind for the summer.

And then, to top it all off, the pretty brunette girl who’s been at the center of the conversation that Jack is now awkwardly and unwittingly at the edge of, suddenly points at him. Her eyes light up and Jack knows exactly what’s going to happen before it does, like a terrifying and inevitable dream sequence that still manages to catch him off guard.

You’d think, Jack thinks in the two seconds between when the girl opens her mouth and when the words come out, that he’d be better at just expecting this kind of thing to happen.

“Hey, you’re Jack Zimmermann, aren’t you?” she says, and everyone looks at him.

They hadn’t planned to end up at a party, had been considering a six pack and a few rounds of COD or something, but then Kent had gotten a text saying some friend of a teammate was throwing a house party a half a mile or so away. Kent had seemed excited about it and Jack hadn’t needed much convincing after that. But now he’s almost at the bottom of his too-strong screwdriver and he’s not sure where Kent went, and his bottle of pills is sitting in his bedroom, and the five participants in the conversation they’d been half-listening to are all looking over at him curiously.

“What, Bad Bob Zimmermann’s kid?” one of the guys asks, and a brunette girl nods emphatically.

“I mean you are, aren’t you? You look just like him.”

“Yes. Hi,” Jack says. He reaches for his pocket. He’s in public anyway, so it’s more like a nervous habit, a reflex. But it’s empty, of course, because he hadn’t known they were coming to this party and hadn’t planned ahead.

“See,” brunette girl says to her friends, “I told you there were a bunch of hockey dudes here tonight. Are you, like, so excited for the draft? My dad won’t shut up about it.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. His mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton. “It’s. Exciting. I’m looking forward to it, definitely.”

“So the guy in the hat’s Parson, then,” someone says. “What? I pay attention to the news you know. It’s a whole best-friend-rivalry thing. Where’d he go, anyway? Thought you were supposed to be attached at the hip or whatever.”

Good fucking question, Jack thinks. This isn’t something he’s going to be able to slink out of, and the edge of irritation is running up against the hot jitter of stress in his spine, grating there, a white line of tension up his back.

“He’s cute,” another one of the girls says, and that’s annoying too.

“So what do you think?” the brunette girl asks, determined to get her hockey question in. It was also, in its way, inevitable, because it’s at least half the questions he gets asked these days and it’s only slightly better than strange reporters with microphones asking him point-blank if his father is proud of him. Jack would almost rather steer the conversation back to Kent’s appearance but she goes on ahead. “I mean, you gotta have an idea, right? Do you think you’re gonna go first? Or Parson?”

Jack’s aware they’re all looking at him and it feels an all-encompassing head-to-toe physical pressure, something he can actually feel, and he knows he has to say something, but his mouth is dry and his hands feel rigid. He’s scrambling in his head, reaching for some kind of canned response that’s having a hard time coming, when someone puts a hand on his arm. Kent slides over the arm of the couch and ends up half on Jack’s lap, his free hand not holding his cup dropping over Jack’s shoulder. His fingers make contact, just barely, with the spot right above the collar of Jack’s t-shirt. Everyone glances over at him, away from Jack.

Jack knows they work best as a duo and people think of them that way, Zimms and Parse, but he also knows that people like Kent more than they like him. It’s his all-American good looks and easy mannerisms, his sharp wit. Jack’s the last name, Kent’s the personality.

Sometimes it does bother Jack, and sometimes it’s a relief when people look in someone else’s direction.

Kent had said something when he sat down that Jack didn’t catch, and he’s snorting when Jack tunes back in. “Please. He’s going to Vegas,” he says. “I’ll be in LA, or maybe Tampa if I go third, but God I fucking hate Florida. My mom took my sister and me when we were kids. Fucking hell hole. Like an armpit.” He smiles, real big, and the girls all probably think he’s smiling at them.

Jack wants to say that he won’t go third, that’s ridiculous, but his voice is stuck in his throat.

“Anyway,” Kent says, and stands up, his hand leaving Jack’s neck, “Zimms, I did say we’d make an appearance elsewhere, so we gotta bounce.” He tosses back the rest of his drink and smiles again, easy and bright. It’s his ‘cheery for the camera post-win’ grin; Jack’s familiar with it, and he also knows it’s very different from the one that always indicates they’re about to get into some kind of mischief. Jack likes the second better, but he also likes that he can tell them apart. Most people don’t seem to realize when Kent is posturing. Sometimes it’s for the sake of being friendly, or professional, to come off cool in a way Jack knows he himself will never be able to, or to silently make fun of someone in a way only Jack will pick up. Jack can almost always tell the difference.

“Uh, sure,” Jack says, and he stands up too, sets his drink on the solo-cup littered side table. There isn’t another party, and they both know it. “Sorry, I guess we’re going.”

“Cool,” one of the girls says. “It was cool meeting you!” She smiles and seems nice, and Jack feels guilty for clamming up, for his inability to make conversation, for not being able to just answer the question.

Kent slides his fingers around Jack’s elbow so they end up resting right in its crook where the skin is a little ticklish. It probably looks innocuous, two guys pushing through the crowd one after another, but it doesn’t feel that way. Jack wants to lean into it, the contact of his fingers, because his skin feels too tight everywhere else but there. His head hurts. There’s a dull pressure between his eyes and he left the fucking pills at home.

They leave by the front door and Kent begs two smokes from a girl in shorts who’s balanced on the railing; Kent offers one and Jack shakes his head, then rolls his eyes when Kent lets the girl light it with her lighter. He slides the other one behind her ear, and winks at her as he hops down the porch steps.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Jack says. He doesn’t mean to nag or act like a pain in the ass, hockey mode switched on or whatever, but it’s easy and it comes naturally and without much thought. It’s better than not saying anything.

“Gee, thanks Dad,” Kent smiles around the cigarette as they walk down the driveway.

“Fuck off,” Jack says. “You’re an athlete.”

“Zimms,” Kent says, “I could smoke a pack a day and still outskate your ass.” There’s no weight to it; Kent’s the faster of the two of them, Jack the better shot.

“Your shots are gonna go wide if you have to stop and hack up a lung,” Jack says, and Kent laughs. They round the corner of the street. It’s hot out, sticky, and Jack wants to be sick of the heat but isn’t because he knows what it will mean when it starts to change.

It’s like some kind of sick joke, every day getting closer to the thing he’s been working for his whole damn life and being completely batshit terrified of it.

He could have just answered the fucking question. Probably should have. It’s not like it’s never been asked by anybody before and it’s not like he isn’t going to hear it again. Not like he hasn’t had plenty of practice deflecting the question, insisting he’s just excited and that they’ll both bring their best. That’s not even a lie, not really, because they are excited and they’re both good and he really doesn’t know. The sporting thing to do would say “Parse, of course,” and that’s what Kent often says in reverse, what he said in there. But that isn’t what they want to hear. They want to hear what they think Jack thinks. Entitled rich kid thinks he deserves to come out on top, best friendship turns into a rivalry, they have headlines for a week and nobody is surprised.

As if Jack hasn’t worked his ass off to get here, too. Years and years of it, early morning practices and time away from home and nights spent rewatching tape instead of doing his homework or hanging out with the friends he never really had anyway. But none of that matters because they look at him and see his dad’s jawline, his dad’s Stanley Cup, his dad’s legacy.

If Kent goes first it’s a victory. All-American kid from a single mom family takes the hockey world by storm. If Jack does, then it’s been handed to him.

Kent’s good on the ice. Maybe better than Jack. And no douchebag with a camera ever follows him out of practice trying to get a tabloid shot. Nobody ever asks him about his dad in the same breath that they’re asking him about his season. Nobody brings up his childhood photos, asks him to scrawl his signature across a magazine because they’re such a big fan of Bad Bob (a household name, you know), assumes he leveraged his famous last name to elbow his way to the top.

Sometimes Jack feels envious of him, Kent with his mom and his sister, this neat little family unit that has no heaviness and no baggage to it. He likes the Parsons; Kent’s mom is somehow warm and businesslike at the same time, his sister smart-mouthed and sitting on the edge of adolescent prettiness, a combination that’s likely to get her into trouble as she gets older. He misses them a lot, Jack knows. Kent talks about his mom in a way that always makes Jack feel light inside; stories about the year where she had to work on Christmas, so he and his sister hauled all their presents on the bus so they could open them together on her dinner break, that sort of thing. Jack knows things haven’t always been easy for them, knows Kent’s mom worked her ass off to keep the three of them afloat, made a lot of sacrifices so Kent could be here at all.

Jack feels bad about feeling that way, a bitter meanness because he knows it’s something he can’t understand, their family and its ins and outs, its absent father and long nights up and the tiny apartment Kent grew up in. Jack loves his parents. Loves his dad. But Kent’s family isn’t complicated.

Nobody, not even Kent, has any idea what Jack feels like. They’re both in the spotlight right now, but being in the spotlight is nothing at all like being Bad Bob Zimmermann’s son.

So sometimes the desire to toss the politeness is right there on the surface, brittle and mean, the urge to turn away and say, “None of you have any damn idea what you’re asking me,” because they don’t get it.

 _It has to be me,_ is the answer, but it’s followed with, _But I can’t-- But I have to-- But I won’t-- But I have to--_ and on and on like that, forever. Back and forth and around, this horrifying contradiction of what has to be and what what can’t, what he knows he has to do and the knowledge of what will happen if he does. The anxiety’s not new to Jack, not at all, though it’s less like an old friend than it is like an uninvited internal houseguest nobody else can see. Sometimes he can live with it, get by, balance it out. And sometimes-- well sometimes---

Recently, it’s been a victory if Jack only hyperventilates in a bathroom three or four days out of the week instead of seven. It’s a really good one if nobody else knows it happens.

He takes a couple of deep breaths in through his nose.

“We didn’t have to leave,” he says, because he has to say something. He thinks he sounds a little convincing, despite everything. Kent doesn’t look at him but frowns at the cigarette, pursing his lips to release a cloud of smoke that might pass as the shittiest smoke rings of all time.

“What do you mean?” he asks. “It was fucking lame, I was ready to get out of there.” He starts to cross the street and doesn’t really seem to be going in any direction, but Jack follows him anyway. It’s dark, and the streetlights give everything a yellowish cast. Jack knows he decided to leave because of the conversation but also Jack’s reaction to it, and that makes him feel guilty too, hot and prickly all over.

Kent pauses on the curb and looks over at him. “You good?” he asks, and his face is caught between playfulness and seriousness in a way Jack doesn’t really understand.

“I’m fine,” Jack says, and he can feel that it sounds flat but there isn’t any way around that.

“You sure?”

“Said I’m fine,” Jack’s voice snaps a little. The question rankles, because it was just a stupid party and he’s not a child and Kent’s his friend-- his-- whatever-- point is, Kent’s not his mother.

Kent sighs, an irritated sound, but doesn’t say anything. The silence sits between them for a second until Jack reaches over the bump their elbows together because it was a stupid party, and a stupid question, that’s all. Kent does lean into it a little in a way that isn’t really innocuous.

“Thanks, Kenny,” Jack says, and he means for it to sound casual, but it comes out quiet. Kent smiles at him. He wishes he hadn’t forgotten the pills at home. He doesn’t say this out loud because these are his issues, his messy insides; not Kent’s fault, or Kent’s problem.

“Let’s walk to the park or something,” Kent says. “It’s too fucking early to go home but everything else’ll be closed.”  

“What?” Jack asks. “Want me to push you on the fucking swing or something?” But he follows Kent down the street anyway. It is only a little past midnight, and it’s summer, and it’s not like they have anything better to do.

The park in question is a collection of metal frames holding a swingset, monkeybars and a slide sitting in an expanse of grass, with a line of shrubs between the parks and the street.  One of the streetlamps is flickering so half the lawn is in darkness and the shadows waver, pulled out of shape by the wash of yellow light. 

Jack doesn’t feel great, exactly, but he feels like there’s a bubble of warmth in his stomach that’s sitting on top of the anxiety, all alcohol and humid air and the way Kent’s hat is sitting on his head. And this is summer; sweat under the collar of his t-shirt and the lingering taste of orange juice in his mouth, their shadows the only things moving in the street.

“Beat you to it,” Jack says, and he takes off running before Kent can take the cigarette out of his mouth.

“Zimms!” Kent yells behind him, and Jack doesn’t stop until he’s vaulting over the bushes surrounding the park. Jack only beats him because he got a head start, but that’s okay. Kent runs into his back and his hands catch the belt loop at the back of Jack’s jeans so they both stagger a little, and his laughter is sharp in the muggy air. Jack laughs too, because he can, and hip-checks Kent so his grip breaks. Kent shoves back, gets his arms around Jack’s waist so Jack is forced to grapple him into a headlock, and they wrestle around like that until they’re both breathless and laughing.

Jack probably wins, but who the hell can tell.

He’s still laughing when Kent lets go of him and takes a few steps across the grass; he hoists himself up on the metal rungs of the ladder that would let some kid get to the top of the monkey bars. Rather than travel across them he clambers onto the top, slings one leg over. Kent slides himself so he’s sitting right in the middle with his legs hanging off the edge, feet dangling in midair.

With his feet flat on the ground, Jack can reach up and loop his hands around the metal bars. He bends his arms like he’s doing a pull-up and hangs there for a second because he knows Kent’s watching him doing it, then pulls himself through the bars, putting his weight on his arms. His shoulders almost don’t fit through the rectangular opening between the rungs. Jack swings his feet back and forth a little, grins.

“Showoff,” Kent says, but the expression on his face indicates that he’s not complaining, not really. He shifts a little so his arms are braced on both sides of the bars (the muscles in his forearms standing out) and, after pausing for a second to consider the logistics, loops his knees over one rung and then lets himself drop.

“Oh my God,” Jack says as he goes. Kent’s hat falls off and hits the grass, and his shirt rides up when he reaches his hands towards the ground. When he turns his head a little his face is turning red but he grins, upside down and backwards.They stay there for a second, some kind of weird inverse mirror image, Jack hanging from elbows and Kent from his knees, and then Kent reaches up and catches the rungs with his hands again. He untangles his legs and lets them drop, and dangles from his hands.

“Ow,” he says, probably in reference to the strain he just put his abdominals through.

The metal bars are digging into Jack’s arms so he adjusts his grip and lets himself drop too; he has to bend his knees a little in order to effectively pull himself across the space between them without dragging his feet in the grass. Kent watches him get closer and the remains of the laughter’s gone from his face, but it’s replaced by something quiet and a little vulnerable.

He hadn’t hung himself upside down, but Jack still feels like the blood and remaining alcohol in his body’s gone right to his head, heady and hot. He feels careless and drunk on his carelessness and there’s nobody around.

That’s familiar territory, what they’re good at. Adrenaline highs, and pushing each other just a little bit to see what’ll happen, laughing about it afterwards even when it feels so serious during. There’s something both hysterical and serious about their secret, because it’s dangerous enough to be weighty but not in a way that stops them both from skirting around its edges all the time. Kent’s hand on the back of Jack’s neck at the party. Their shins pressed together under dinner tables. Kisses in the locker room after the lights are out and nobody’s around to see. Rumors exist for a reason, or something.

Jack moves hand-over-hand until their hands are side by side on the metal bars, which are a little slick with the humidity. He lets his fingers end up on top of Kent’s, just a little, and their hanging knees bump together and their faces are very close.

Kent’s eyes drop closed a little as Jack leans forward, as he suspected they would, and right before Jack actually makes contact, he gets his fingers under Kent’s so his grip breaks, and he falls over.

If he’d had his eyes open, he would probably have just landed on his feet, but he doesn’t, so he stumbles and ends up flat on his back in the grass.

“Zimms!” he splutters. “Fuck off! Fuck you!” Jack is already laughing too hard to keep holding on, so he lets his feet touch the grass, stumbling a little bit because his laughter’s making him bend over double.

“Gotcha,” he wheezes.

“I’m gonna kick your ass,” Kent says, and he kicks at the back of Jack’s knee which makes him lose his balance, and he’s laughing too much to really do anything about it so he goes down too. Kent’s laughing when Jack falls half on top of him, jabs him in the stomach with an elbow. He’s still laughing when Jack shifts so his hands are in the grass on either side of Kent’s face, and when Jack kisses him he can feel his laughter against his mouth.

They kiss with heat but without any real sense of urgency, no push to turn it into anything else yet. There’s something about the way everything gets narrowed down to this, their physical contact, the slick line of Kent’s teeth against Jack’s top lip and his knee between Jack’s legs, his hand at the nape of Jack’s neck in his hair. Kent kisses the underside of his jaw, the spot right under his ear, his bottom lip, and Jack breathes into them all, wants to get as close as he can for as long as he can.

A car engine starts somewhere, a couple streets away, and it’s enough of a distraction that Jack moves back a little and rolls over onto his back so they’re side by side. Kent traces the line of Jack’s shoulder and runs his hand down Jack’s arm, catches his elbow.

Jack doesn’t remember the specifics of their meeting, probably a handshake in a locker room with a billion other people around. But he does remember the first time Kent had caught him by the elbow and held on for a second too long, remembers thinking Kent Parson is funny, smart, and dangerous. Jack hadn’t known what to do about it, that contact and what it implied, and it made his lungs feel tight, a combination of excitement and fear. It’s been a consistent gesture, Kent’s hand on his elbow as he passes by in the locker room, before the TV cameras switch on, as they share a joke in the middle of a party. A private conversation with no words, with meaning only for them.

Kent’s thumb sits at the crook of Jack’s elbow, and his lungs feel tight for a different reason.

On an impulse, Jack leans up on his elbow and over, and catches Kent by the back of the neck. Kent leans up too, a little, but Jack doesn’t kiss him again. Instead, he leans his head forward so their foreheads are touching, foreheads and the line of Kent’s nose against his. Jack closes his eyes and breathes for a second.

“Jesus Christ,” Kent snorts a little. “What, we in one of your mom’s rom-coms right now?”

Something drops heavy and tense into Jack’s stomach and shoulders. His breathing hitches, and he feels simultaneously very hot, very angry, and very stupid. He jerks back, opens his eyes but slides them to the ground and away.

“Hey,” Kent says, and he catches Jack’s collar. He moves closer even as Jack pulls away. “Didn’t say I minded. I like rom-coms.”

A joke. Jesus, Zimmermann. Can’t take a fucking joke, can't go to a party without pausing a scene, can't make it through the week without hyperventilating in a bathroom. Jack takes a deep breath and lets it out.

“And your mom,” Kent says, the obligatory follow-up line. He laughs a little and Jack can feel it in the line of his nose against his own.

“Jesus,” Jack says. “You’re a dick, Parse, you know that?”

“Takes one to know one,” Kent singsongs, and Jack closes his eyes again.

It’s just a moment. A minute passes, maybe less, but it feels both longer and shorter than that. A moment can go by in the space of a breath and then be gone, but it can also last, stretch on long after the clock’s moved on and it’s been forgotten. Jack knows firsthand how strange time can be. Ten seconds on the ice can feel like a whole frozen year, and this summer’s gone by faster than he can even think, days that in reality are long and hot and busy getting sucked away by his inevitable forward momentum. Momentum he can’t control.

With his eyes closed, Jack doesn’t see Kent move but he does; he presses his mouth to Jack’s, right in the corner, soft and fast and sweet.

Kent rolls back over a second later to lie flat on his back again, and Jack lets his hand get trapped between the grass and the back of Kent’s head. Kent looks up at the sky and the streetlights and Jack looks at him. Grass in his hair, shirt collar askew, face caught in a moment of contentment. Grass is tickling the back of Jack’s neck, and part of him feels the way Kent’s face looks, content in the space where there isn’t anywhere else they want to be right now, nobody else who needs their time.

That’s all anything really is, Jack thinks. Moments. Nothing more or less than that. They’ll be gone in a minute and that’ll be that, and the summer will be gone and with it--

There’s a finish line at the end of this that feels more like a wall, no way to swerve out of its way or go around it. He wants it. They both want it. They wouldn’t even know each other if they didn’t both want it.

If Jack was a better person, he’d say something. Some kind of promise, or a reassurance, or even just that he’s grateful that Kent stuck up for him at the party. _It’s gonna be fine_ , or _We’ll figure it out_ , or even just _We’ll see._ That all sounds rehearsed, though. The kind of captain-y bullshit Jack is pretty good at making sound convincing when he's not feeling it himself. And it’d be a lie anyway.

All Jack knows is that he’s going to go into this and come out on the other side, and somewhere in there, he’s going to pry his fingers from anyone else’s preconceived evaluations of who he is, what he can do, what he’s going to do. People think he’s leaning on them, but he doesn’t think it’s possible to lean on something that’s also strangling you.

All Jack knows is that after this summer, everything is going to be different. 

“Come on,” he says. “The beer back at the house is probably still cold.” He stands up.

“Cool,” Kent says and he stands too. “It’s fucking hot out here. Hey--” He’d left his hat lying on the grass and Jack scoops it up on impulse. He’s about to put it on Kent’s head when Kent makes a grab for it, which means that Jack has to use the few inches he’s got on Kent to lift it up out of his reach. He just has to. Kent nearly knocks him over again trying to get it back but gives up when Jack jams it on his head, holding it down with both hands and sticking his tongue out from under the brim.

“Whatever,” Kent says, a bit out of breath, “keep it. You need a fucking haircut.” Jack rotates the hat so the brim’s facing backwards, sets it at an angle to mirror how Kent always wears it. His hair is sticking out from underneath it, over his ears. He moves just in time when Kent makes another grab for it, so Kent ends up getting him on the side of the face with his hand. Jack catches his wrist to stop him from trying again and Kent makes a big show of trying to jerk his hand free for a second.

Whatever had been there, the thread of tension and warmth and heavy unsaid things, has lessened. It’s not gone, not all the way. Jack doesn’t think it’ll be gone until all this is over. But they’ve dropped back into the comfortable two-step push-pull they do best, physical contact edging into something else that Jack doesn’t have the right words for in either language.

He tries not to think about that, because it can’t be anything more than that-- it is, of course, but it can’t. There are things Jack knows about what’s going to happen and--

“You got any idea what street we’re on?” Kent asks, completely derailing Jack’s train of thought.

Jack isn’t sure, but he has a somewhat fuzzy recollection of how they got here from the party, and he does know how to get back to the house from there so as long as they head in that general direction he thinks he’ll be able to figure it out. He opens his mouth to say this but is interrupted by a series of clicks from somewhere in the grass behind them.

“Oh, shit,” Kent says, and neither of them have time to move anywhere before the sprinkler goes off two feet away from where they’re standing. 

It hits Jack right in between the shoulder blades, chilly water spraying up everywhere. Kent starts laughing, and then the sprinkler stutters in his direction and gets him directly in the face.

 

 

 

 

They have to run through the arc of three other sprinklers to get out of the grass, and they leave a set of wet footprints side by side on the sidewalk as they dash back to the house. Jack’s hair is dripping into his face and his sneakers squelch when he kicks them off and tosses them onto the floor of his bedroom; he cracks open a beer and then yanks his wet shirt over his head and tosses it in the direction of his dirty laundry.

He passes the beer to Kent, who is grimacing.

“Who runs the sprinklers at one in the morning?” he says. He goes to wipe his face off with his shirt before apparently realizing his shirt is just as wet, and he gives up in disgust, grabbing the beer. “My shoes are all fucked up.” He scowls around the mouth of the bottle.

“You’re the one who started talking about romance movie bullshit,” Jack says. “You’re making a puddle, man, take that shit off. Wear one of mine if you want.” He points with a thumb towards his dresser drawer, then takes the bottle back and steps into the bathroom to towel off his hair.

The bottle of pills is sitting on the counter next to the sink and Jack looks at it for a minute but doesn’t open it. It’s late (or early, maybe) and the beer’s making him feel warm and sleepy, and it’s not worth the conversation or Kent’s inevitable irritation and concern if he hears the rattle of the lid.

He hangs up the towel and pulls his jeans off, swaps them for a pair of sweatpants and drapes them over the shower rod to dry. When he comes back into the room, Kent’s put his wet shirt over the back of Jack’s desk chair and pulled on one of Jack’s, a long sleeve knit thing that’s too big on him.

“Stop hogging that,” Kent says, and crosses the room to grab the beer out of Jack’s hand, close enough that Jack can feel his body heat. Kent takes a sip and watches Jack as he does. “What time is it?” he asks.

“One or something,” Jack says.

“Cool,” Kent says, and he puts his hand on Jack’s bare chest and pushes him backwards until Jack’s back runs into the door jamb, and he presses up to kiss him, his mouth hot and half open.

“Parse,” Jack says against his mouth. “Your jeans are fucking soggy, I just put dry pants on--” Kent sighs in an incredibly put-upon way.

“What you get for shoving me off that jungle gym,” he says against Jack’s neck. Jack threads his fingers through Kent’s hair in spite of himself.

“Oh, so you’re just being vindictive?”

“Maybe,” Jack can feel him smile, and can also feel his fingers slide over Jack’s ribs. “What?” Kent laughs in Jack’s ear. “Should I go stick ‘em in the dryer and wake everybody up? Bang a few pots and pans around while I’m at it?”

“You could just take them off,” Jack says, sliding his fingers under the hem of the borrowed shirt, “and stop getting sprinkler water all over the place.”

“Your subtlety needs a little work, Zimms,” Kent says. “And I’m not about to walk home in my boxers anyway.” He’s being difficult just for the sake of it, Jack knows, but he still shakes his head anyway, catches Kent by the shoulder and pushes him back a little so he can look at him.

“Kenny,” he says, “don’t be an idiot.”

“Oh,” Kent says, and Jack kisses him again, because he doesn’t want this night to end.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack wakes up first, because he’s never been great at sleeping in and Kent’s elbow is in his stomach. Seven a.m. The blinds on his window are slotting yellow morning sunshine across the blanket and Kent’s shoulders, which are caught between Jack and the wall; diagonal slants of light that Jack follows with his eyes.

His bed is definitely not meant for two people but they’d made it work, and now they’re stuck in a complicated tangle of limbs, both of their heads on one pillow. Kent’s right arm is looped over Jack’s waist, his left trapped awkwardly between them, the source of the pointy offending elbow in Jack’s ribs. His mouth’s half open and his hair’s sticking up where his face is smushed into the pillow. The sleeves of Jack’s borrowed shirt are hanging over his hands, just a little.

Jack lets himself sit there and watch him breathe, and he’s not really sure how much time has gone by when Kent’s eyes flicker open and he looks right at Jack. Jack feels a little like he’s been caught red-handed, because their faces are inches apart maybe, morning breath and bed head, and there isn’t any way this doesn’t look like he’s been sitting here just staring at him. But Kent smiles.

“Hey,” he says, and he yawns a little. He shifts his head on the pillow so he can free up his arm, and Jack can see creases on his cheek from the pillow.

“Your knee is in my spleen,” Jack says, and Kent moves a little to straighten his legs, which means his knee just ends up in between Jack’s knees and they’re even closer together.

One of Jack’s arms is stuck pretty firmly under both their heads and the pillow and the other he’s got tucked between their chests, and Kent slides his right hand up Jack’s bicep to catch his wrist. He rotates it and before Jack realizes what he’s doing he’s pressing a kiss to the spot right below the heel of Jack’s hand, where the skin is thin and sensitive. Jack watches him because he doesn’t seem to be able to look anywhere else.

“This is nice,” he says, voice scratchy and low. He moves his hand back down Jack’s arm and slides it under Jack’s t-shirt, so his fingers rest at the base of Jack’s spine. “Nicer if you weren’t hogging the pillow though.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “My pillow, you know.” Kent’s stupid cowlick is falling into his face and Jack brushes it back a little, then moves his head a little to relinquish the offending pillow space because Kent is trapped against the wall which can’t be comfortable. Kent’s fingers are following his spine in slow, lazy circles and Jack is warm and comfortable, could probably go back to sleep for another hour or two. The morning’s going but he doesn’t feel any need to make it move any faster. Kent’s eyes are half-open and he looks like he might drop off again too.

He turns his head get comfortable again, makes another attempt at getting Kent’s cowlick to stay behind his ear then gives that up, then lets his eyes drop closed. But then Kent clears his throat a little.

“Jack,” Kent says, quiet enough that Jack almost misses it. He shifts a little to look at him directly. Kent’s eyes are sleepy but serious, and the early-morning sun-warmed silliness has dropped from them altogether. There’s a set to his jaw Jack doesn’t know what to do with, something that’s hard and soft at the same time, and Jack’s throat goes tight and he doesn’t know why. He thinks about burying his face back in the pillow, or kissing Kent again, but he doesn’t. He’s held by the look in his eyes.

“What?” Jack says.

“Gonna miss you,” Kent says, quiet and serious and not entirely awake, and Jack doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> (bangs pots and pans) im in hell im in HELLLL IM IN HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL im living down here in the pit & i hope u all enjoy the fruits of my suffering
> 
> this fic exists bc cait egged me on as usual & then was like 'BUT WHAT IF I DO PARSE'S POV' so its their fault, really, not mine. i havent written parse's voice before i hope he turned out alright
> 
> come say hi on tumblr if you like :) shittybknights.tumblr.com


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